"Who's this?" he said; and he walked into the dining-room and nearly closed the door, but not quite. The next minute there were steps in the hall, the door was opened, and the curate's bluff voice rang through the place in an inquiry after the doctor. "He's very poorly, sir," said Mrs Milt, in a low and cautious voice. "I don't really know what to make of him." "I do," said Salis. "He wants rest and change, Mrs Milt." "Yes, sir; I think that's it, sir." "I wish I could get him away. I will." "Will you?" said Cousin Thompson softly. "Here, I'll go up and see him. In his room, I suppose?" "Excuse me, sir; I think you had better not. It irritates him. Old Moredock came last night about some trifling ailment, and poor master was quite angry about it. Then Mr Thompson went up to his door, and it seemed to irritate him. You know how tetchy and fretful it makes any one when he's ill." "I want to see him, Mrs Milt. I want to talk to him." Cousin Thompson's eyes twitched. "But I'll go by your advice." Mrs Milt said something in reply which the listener missed, and consequently exaggerated largely as to its value, and directly after Salis went away in a new character--to wit, that of Cousin Thompson's mortal enemy; though Salis himself was in utter ignorance of the fact. "Well, and how are we to-day?" said the lawyer on entering the old library at the Hall. Sir Thomas Candlish was lying back in his chair, with a cigar in his mouth, a sporting paper on his lap, and a soda and brandy--or, rather, two brandies and a soda--at his elbow. "How are we to-day!" he snarled. "Don't come here talking like a cursed smooth humbug of a doctor about to feel one's pulse." "But I am a doctor, and I have come to feel your pulse, my dear sir," said Cousin Thompson laughingly. "Eh?--what? Again! Why, there's nothing due yet." "There, there, there! don't trouble yourself, my dear Sir Thomas. There is a little amount to meet; but you are not, as you used to be, worried about money matters. You can pay." "Yes," snarled Tom Candlish; "and you seem to know it, too." "Come, that's unkind. It isn't generous, my dear sir. Surely if a man lends money he has a right to claim repayment." "Oh, yes, I know all about that--the old, old jargon of the craft. I don't want to borrow now. If I did I suppose I should hear all about your friend in the City, eh?--your client who advances the money, eh?" "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Thompson. "One needn't ask how you are. The old vein of fun is coming back flushed with health and strength." "Cursed slowly. Now, then, what do you want?" "Oh, it is a mere trifling business." "A trifle." "It would have been serious to you once; but it is a trifle now." "Well, let's have it." "No, no, not yet. There, I'll take a cigar and a B. and S." "Ah, do," said Candlish sarcastically. "Make yourself at home, pray." "To be sure I will. I've come to doctor you and do you good." "Damn all doctors!" sneered Candlish.